The recordings that would become Sleep's Holy Mountain were originally sent to independent label, Earache, as a demo. The label immediately signed the band and released the recordings exactly as they were received. It was the last album to be released by the band as a fully functioning group, as their subsequent albums were released after the group had broken up.
The album, which includes the word "stoner" in the lyrics of two songs[2] and prominently features cannabis leaves in its album art, is widely considered one of the seminal albums in the evolution of stoner rock. It became a favourite of the heavy metal press and the band was heralded, along with Kyuss, as leaders of the emerging stoner metal scene.
